The Bible of Western War, Now Featuring Cartoon Animals

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The Bible of Western War, Now Featuring Cartoon Animals

How many times has this happened to you: at the schoolyard, you watch two kindergarteners prattle senselessly about some toy-related dispute. They rally their fellows to their respective causes, each pressing the justice of his case. Forces amassed, they begin gamely pushing and smacking one another, resulting in plaintive cries of woe, only to desultorily cease hostilities, with no appreciable change in the allotment of toys.

And you think to yourself: If only these children could appreciate Clausewitz, this awful futility could have been avoided.

That's not exactly why Caitlin Fitzgerald started turning Carl von Clausewitz's 1832 masterpiece On War into an online children's book. But, Fitzgerald says, laughing, "if kids knew about Clausewitz, it wouldn't be such a bad thing."

One wonders. On War is Clausewitz's attempt to distill warfare down to its enduring essentials. Its only equal is Sun Tzu's The Art of War. If you've heard the phrase, "war is politics by other means," you know the nickel version. If you want to go for the jackpot, stroll over to one of the war colleges or onto any military listserv to hear people debate Clausewitz's relevance to their pet issue or dispute what he really said like he was Marshall McLuhan in Annie Hall.

But if you'd like something in between, Fitzgerald's Clausewitz for Kids blog is slowly recasting On War, section by section, into a lecture series in the Prussian forest, conducted by Hare Clausewitz (get it?), the intense-looking rabbit officer pictured above in Napoleonic-era regalia.

Hare Clausewitz holds forth on the cruelties of fate ("With the best planning in the world, you will still always be at the mercy of chance. It is unavoidable in war. You are always gambling to some degree"), the objective of violence ("to make the enemy do our will, to make him do what we want him to do"), and the primacy of politics in war ("You must never forget this part, because war is just a continuation of policy"). The otters, badgers, boars and other woodland creatures stand in for the children, asking Hare Clausewitz to back up and explain one of his concepts. He's not really into it: "Please save your questions!" he bellows.

Not exactly something for the playground.

The whole thing started as a Twitter joke with Fitzgerald's friends. Jason Fritz from the Ink Spots blog tweeted last fall that he couldn't interest his six-year old in On War since the book, alas, has no pictures.

Suddenly Fitzgerald, who'd recently finished reading On War, knew what she had to do. "I started it for my own entertainment," says Fitzgerald. "It didn't come out of a driving need for kids to know about Clausewitz." She credits her friend Lauren Jenkins, a Danger Room pal and development blogger, with coming up with Hare Clausewitz, after Fitzgerald toyed with making him a fox, boar or marten. "He kind of reminds me of Hazel from Watership Down," she says.

Months later, Fitzgerald is devoted to translating all of On War, with her own illustrations, for the erector-set strategist crowd. It advances slowly, as her time allows: the Boston-based Fitzgerald, a former international relations grad student, works three different jobs. "I would have no objection to a book deal on this," she generously allows.

So far, the blog has yet to yield a book offer, let alone a ruthlessly calculating group of playground Prussians. But give it time. From serving officers, Fitzgerald says, "I hear, 'I can't wait to read this to my kids.'" – shudder – "And I hear just as often from people in the military, 'Oh, I need this, or I might never understand Clausewitz.'" Coming soon, surely: the animated adventures of the Woodland General Staff.

Illustrations courtesy of Caitlin Fitzgerald. Special thanks to reader WM for bringing this to my attention.